Toad Story
by Tuulikki
Summary: Sai, and his fear of frogs. Written for Blind Go round 10.


One of my entries for Blind Go round 10 last autumn. An explanation for Sai's phobia...

* * *

**Toad Story**

Some spring days are falsely sunny and warm, so that you imagine you can run out in a t-shirt and shorts, only to return home shivering and spend the next week with the flu. But some days are just as poets make them sound: sweet and fair, and full of the promise of sun and summer. On a day like that one should not be expected to stay inside reading for a chemistry exam, and so Hikaru too had headed out – still carrying his chemistry book, though; his mother and a certain nagging ghost had made sure of it.

Now he was lying on his back in a tiny park, next to a charming little pond, and the book lay on his chest, forgotten.

"Shouldn't you continue reading, Hikaru?" the ghost sitting next to him asked, and Hikaru mumbled something incoherent as a reply.

"Your mother is worried about your grades," Sai went on. "I'm afraid she won't let you play as much go anymore if your grades continue dropping like this. So please… _try_ to do well in this exam."

"I said I'll read tomorrow, so stop whining already," Hikaru muttered and opened lazily his eyes. "I can't concentrate on chem on a day like this… and besides, if I'm going to be a go pro, where do I need chemistry anyway?"

Sai sighed. In truth, he agreed with that, but that wasn't the point here. But maybe he could give up for now. It _was_ a beautiful day, and he as well rather spent it here by this beautiful pond than in Hikaru's little room. Tomorrow, though. The man in that small box, what was it called again, had said it would rain tomorrow. He'd make sure Hikaru would study then. He hoped the man wasn't wrong about the weather as he sometimes was…

But this was certainly a delightful day! He watched with a smile the chirping birds that flew around against the blue sky, the first blooming flowers, the small insects that flew over the pond's surface, and, oh, wasn't there too a…

"_Gaaah!_" he shrieked and jumped on his feet.

"What?" Hikaru bolted up and looked wildly about. "What is it?"

"A toad!" Sai yelled and waved frantically with his fan. "Toad!"

"Where?" Hikaru picked up his book that had fallen on the grass and looked at the direction at which Sai was waving. "Oh… do you mean this little fellow?" He bent down to pick something up. "A baby frog! C'mon now, isn't it cute?"

Straightening his back again he turned to Sai to show him the tiny frog he was holding in his hands, but the ghost backed away in horror. "There's nothing cute about that!" Sai covered his face with the fan and turned away, shivering. "A toad is a toad, no matter how small it is."

Hikaru stared at him disbelievingly, shook then his head and let the little frog jump away. "You're ridiculous, you know. How can you be afraid of something that small?"

He sat down on a wide, even stone that was a part of the little stone garden next to the pond, and after a moment Sai sat next to him, looking a bit embarrassed. "There is a very valid reason for it," he muttered, and Hikaru glanced at him curiously.

"Oh? Will you tell me?"

"Well…" Sai avoided his gaze, and seeing his obvious reluctance Hikaru decided iot was time for bribing.

"Hey, I'll take you to some go salon if you do," he said. "It's been a while, hasn't it? I'll let you play a few games again."

"Really?" Sai's face brightened in an instant. "It _has_ been really long… I guess… I could…"

"Yeah?" Hikaru looked at him eagerly and shifted to a more comfortable position. "What happened? Did some big bad toad attack you?"

Sai gave him a look and he shut his mouth. "I don't quite know if I should tell you anything, but…" Sai gave a sigh and opened his fan. "It happened a long time ago, when I was a little younger than you are now. I had been with my friends swimming in a lake, where I accidentally happened to kill a large toad. It…"

"Accidentally? How did you manage in that?"

"It startled me! I was standing there by the shore when suddenly jumped out of nowhere right on my foot, and I kicked and… well, it died. And part of its fluids flew on my foot…"

Hikaru grimaced. "Yucky."

"Yes, quite. But that was just the beginning. Next day I had a weird rash on my foot, and then it started growing. It turned into a tumor that…"

"Wait, what? What kind of a toad was that? Poisonous or something?"

"…could you be quiet for a moment? I'm trying to tell a story."

"Sorry…"

"It turned into a tumor that gradually started to resemble the face of a toad. And one day, when a fly flew past, that tumor _ate_ it, and…"

"The tumor did what!" Hikaru exclaimed. "Now I know you're pulling my leg!"

"Fine." Sai gave a huff and turned his back to Hikaru. "If you don't want to hear the story…"

"I do, I do," Hikaru said, but he was grinning. "Seriously, a frog-faced, fly-eating tumor on your foot? Who'd ever believe - alright, alright, I'm sorry! Please tell me how you got rid off it."

"It did take a while. My family hired the best doctors, and an onmyouji or two came to take a look on it too, but nothing helped. It was rather painful, too – especially if it didn't get to eat. We had to feed it insects every day to keep the pain away. But the worst part was when it started talking to me…"

Hikaru opened his mouth but snapped it close again as Sai gave him a warning look.

"It only spoke when I was alone and I didn't dare to tell anyone about it. I was afraid they'd think I was crazy – at times I was myself sure I'd lost my mind. It mainly spoke of nonsense, asking me weird things, and sometimes it hummed bit of songs I'd happened to hear during the day.

"Then, when we were already giving up hope – father was talking about cutting off my whole leg, as simply cutting off the tumor didn't help, it just grew back on – an old Chinese doctor who had heard about the case came to see us, and he had medicine that worked. He made little pills out of fine powder and fed them to the tumor, and slowly it started growing smaller. It was completely gone in seventeen days, and there was nothing left to show it had ever been there."

Sai fell silent and Hikaru grinned. "Quite a story, really. Wouldn't blame you for fearing toads if that were true."

Sai stiffened a little. "It is true."

"C'mon now, what do you take me for? As if something like that could happen, it's just a total fairy tale."

"Says the boy chatting with a ghost," Sai muttered.

"Whatever!" Hikaru slapped the stone he was sitting and started to get up. "If you… oh, yuck!"

"What?"

Hikaru grimaced. "Look at that." He showed his hand to Sai whose expression paled so much that Hikaru worriedly wondered if a ghost could faint.

An unfortunate small frog had been sitting on the stone, and it was now smashed on Hikaru's hand.

"That's disgusting," the boy muttered as he washed his hand in the pond. "Those frogs should be more careful…"

"Hikaru…" Sai's voice was best described as a moan, and Hikaru rolled his eyes.

"Take it easy." He picked up his book and put in his backpack. "I'm already haunted – that frog needs to find someone else to take revenge on."

"But…"

"Forget it already! Let's go home, it's almost dinner time, anyway."

Toad tumors? Hikaru chuckled a little as he started walking toward home. Sai certainly had a vivid imagination, he thought to himself, as he absentmindedly scratched the palm of his hand which was beginning to itch.

**THE END**

**

* * *

**

Just for the record: I was hardly the one to come up with these "toad tumors"... I got the idea when watching the Black Jack anime.


End file.
